Programmatic deals are meant to simplify buying and selling. In practice, they often create extra work: inconsistent deal IDs across platforms, missing metadata, and custom fields that only make sense inside a single system. That fragmentation slows onboarding, complicates troubleshooting, and increases the odds that a deal fails in-market for reasons no one can pinpoint quickly.
To address this, IAB Tech Lab has released the Deals API Specification for public comment through January 31, 2026.
What the Deals API is designed to do
The Deals API is intended to provide one standardized schema for programmatic deal metadata, so buyers, sellers, and intermediaries can describe and interpret deal terms the same way across platforms.
In practical terms, this shared approach supports:
- Faster onboarding: fewer custom mappings and fewer “what does this field mean?” follow-ups between teams.
- Fewer operational issues: reduced mismatch between deal definitions and platform-specific implementations.
- Simpler troubleshooting and transparency: standardized metadata can make it easier to trace provenance and investigate irregularities across the supply chain.
Built to work alongside OpenRTB and related specs
IAB Tech Lab positions the Deals API as a companion to core programmatic infrastructure, including OpenRTB, and notes its relationship to the LEAP (Live Event Ad Playbook) APIs, where components can be called independently to keep planning and operations tooling aligned.
Guidance for companies with existing deal APIs
For organizations that already operate a deal API internally, the Tech Lab notes that Version 1 is deliberately focused and structured so implementations can map existing fields where possible, while introducing new fields where needed.
“Deals are a core part of how premium programmatic inventory moves through the ecosystem, but too often the underlying metadata is inconsistent across platforms,” said Sonia Carreno, President, IAB Canada. “A common Deals API gives buyers and sellers a clearer, more reliable way to express deal terms, reduce operational friction, and improve transparency across the supply chain. We encourage the Canadian market to review the specification and share feedback during the public comment period.”
How to participate
IAB Tech Lab is inviting the industry to review the Deals API specification and contribute input during the public comment window, with additional participation available through the related working group.